Education part 2
Education and learning has been impacted by technology. With the great leaps in technological advancements Education has changed greatly. In schools throughout the UK ICT, IT or computer based subjects are compulsory to be taught in key stage three and four. This gives the young people who are learning in schools a great advantage because they have grown up learning the functions of a computer and how to use them which is a great advantage. Although there are some great advantages to computer technology in schools, there are also some disadvantages as well. The increase in popularity in technology in schools creates problems for teachers and examiners.
The VLE, short for the Virtual Learning Environment) is one example of how technology has been used to improve education. The VLE program is an online interactive program that offers resources for schools teachers and students. Revision, assessments, class work sheets, homework and extra work are features that can be set up to cover all aspects of everyday school life. There are several VLE systems currently used, mostly in schools, and the FROG VLE is one example of a secondary school based VLE. A VLE system can be accessed by almost any computer as long as the school who owns the system has given the person trying to access it a username and password; this allows them to uncover any learning material that they may need.
Another example of how the information age has effected education today is the use of Interactive whiteboard, also known as Smart Boards. An interactive whiteboard is a touch interactive board and a projector which is linked up with the teacher’s computer. This allows the teacher to bring up work, which they might have on their personal hard drive, and put it in the board with the use of the projector. The board is an interactive board which allows the teachers to use a stylus pen or a finger to interact with what’s on the board may that be writing notes or solving an education game. Interactive whiteboards are becoming increasingly successful and are now in most secondary school and some primary schools.
The effectiveness of Registration has now been improved thanks to technology. Registration used to be all paper bases and had to be filled into dates and times but with the application of computers programs such as SIMS allow schools to register their students electronically. SIMS can be used to record information not only about the student’s attendance but also on their contact details and medical appointments. Other types of electronic registration have recently been introduced in some schools to monitor students’ attendance. Some of these methods are the use of swipe cards and a barcode scanning system, the scanner identifies each student by the use of a unique barcode which has been assigned to each student. This allows the students to sign in and sign out very easily and helps the school to keep track of their attendance.
With the increase in technology schools are trying to stay up to date. Some schools are more successful because they have a higher budget to use, while others steadily update when they have to. In some schools they are starting to introduce Tablets i.e. the I Pad by Apple. This has really started to increase in popularity in areas such as Europe and America. This is probably because the accessibility the I Pad gives and just how easy it is to use by both students and teachers. This does not mean that everyone agrees with the use of I Pads, some people think that desktop PCs are more efficient and typing homework and programs like Flash and JavaScript are not available on the I Pad. Also some people think that we should keep to a more traditional way of teaching without the use of I Pad.
The use of I Pad in schools has mixed views. Some schools see it as an opportunity to take advantage of new technology and to keep up to date, while others schools see it as a distraction for the students because of the leisure side of the device and they prefer to stick with more traditional teaching methods.
The advance in technology has really affected what type of education pupils receive in schools. For example ICT is now a recognised subject that is compulsory for years 3-9 and in some schools it is also compulsory to undergo GCSE’s in ICT, this is usually the case in ICT specialist school. The ICT lessons teach students how to use the internet safely and how to use basic computer programmes in an efficient way. The reason why ICT has become a compulsory subject is because the amount of jobs that use a computer or electronic devices had gone up so much that new jobs have been invented because of computers that we never needed before, a qualification in ICT and to have training in computers is a highly valuable skill .
Some schools spilt up the ICT course into more specified courses. For example some schools teach core ICT, IT, Computing and Applied ICT. Some are only available at higher levels of education i.e. GCSE, A-Level or even Degrees. This allows the school to teach the core subject and then the students can make the choice to study different aspects of the ICT course in higher education.
There are some disadvantages to the increase of computer technology which has been a problem not only in schools but other places to. A major disadvantage is plagiarism and how easy it is to copy and paste other peoples work and claim it as your own. This allows students to hand in work that hasn’t actually been written by them; because information is so easily accessible because of the internet they can do this without getting permission. Another disadvantage of using computers is the decreasing quality of peoples hand writing. Some people say that because we are relying on the use of computers to type up everything, our hand writing skills are declining. Because of this there are now both written exams and in some cases typed exams. The examiners assess the quality of both handwriting and spellings in the written exams. The use of typed exams assist some students which prefer to type as a substitute for writing in there exams.
